James Allen 25 is going through our residential drug rehabilitation programme.  |
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| For the
last three or four years I ’ve been into heroin and crime in a big
way.That ’s what my life has revolved around.Basically,everyday has been a
task to survive.I would wake up in the morning and feel poorly.Then I would go
out and rob or do something stupid just to make money so that I could feed my
habit.It got to the point were I was never happy.I didn ’t know what I was
doing.I knew it was wrong but it just felt as if it was going to keep on going
and going. Obviously,now I ’m in T.H.O.M.A.S.,I ’m trying to build my life back up without the feeling of people resenting what I ’m doing.I was scared to come to a place like this because you don ’t know what people are going to think of you because of your old lifestyle.That ’s what scared me the most about making a change.When I decided to make the change I wasn ’t bothered about what my so-called friends or acquaintances thought. All the lads in jail were saying,‘No,you won ’t do it. You ’ll go there and you won ’t like it.You won ’t last a couple of days.’ It ’s a scary thought.I had it drilled into my head before I came here that it wouldn ’t work so I kept trying to put it off.I kept coming up with excuses like I have to pick something up in Blackpool, visit a relative. When I got to T.H.O.M.A.S.the first couple of days were just settling in and getting to know everyone.I can be open and honest and tell everyone about the things in my life that I would never have mentioned before.It helps to get it off my chest.I feel very emotional at the moment and there ’s a lot of things I can ’t do.I know they are there now and I ’m trying to work it out piece by piece.I was rushing at first and trying to cure myself in a couple of days so I could think of the twelve weeks as recovery.That ’s not how it works.The twelve weeks that I ’m going to be working here will be dealing with things on a day to day basis,not going too far ahead of myself and no rushing.It ’s still scary but I feel now that I ’ve got a chance.I don ’t want to waste it and I ’m very grateful.It ’s a good feeling to still be here because my mates didn ’t think that I was going to last. In addition to my drug problem I ’ve got a quite serious medical problem.I ’ve got a rare bone disease called Multiple Exoteces.Since I was born I ’ve had this disease.It ’s a hereditary disease.The rare thing about my disease is that it has skipped four or five generations.You can go to sleep in the night and wake up in the morning and you ’ve got a growth on your knee,your wrist,your elbow or your ribs.It ’s pretty scary.When they do try to do the operation,which they do as little as possible,the growths can grow big three times as quick and three times as big. It can also cause problems with bones growing inwards instead of outwards because that ’s when it can effect your organs.Over the years I ’ve had fourteen operations and it has caused me some serious problems.I ’m due for some more operations in the next year or two. Due to my condition I ’ve been on all kinds of different painkillers.You start on paracetamol but you build up a tolerance to everything.I ’m at the stage now that I ’m on Dhihidracodine.It ’s always been a factor when I ’ve been taking drugs.With having this bone disease I ’m constantly in pain so when I was out of my head on drugs it took the pain away. There is never going to be a cure for this disease.I was used as a guinea pig for an operation once which went badly wrong.They shave the bone away and put a cream over the bone that ’s been shaved away.That prevents the bone from growing outwards.What they didn ’t check at the time was that if the bone can ’t grow outwards then where is it going to grow.It ’s now growing on the inside of my right lower leg.Eventually,in five or ten years it could effect the marrow in my right leg and I might have to loose it.It ’s not a nice feeling when you ’ve gone for treatment and they ’ve made a mistake.I haven ’t told many people about my disease in the past because they just think that you ’re disabled and they treat you differently.I hate that.At school I could never play sports with my mates because I was classed as a risk.I was an outcast all the time.I was good at football but I couldn ’t get into the team in case one of the guys tackled me badly.I ’ve got to come to terms with it and I ’m going to overcome it.I want to get the best out of my body that it can give. I ’ve got mixed feelings at the moment about what I want for the future.I ’ve got various options.I could go to college in Oxford,there is another organisation called Emmaus were you go to different parts of the country working for yourself.What I want for my future is to be happy and drug free.I want to think about normal life instead of all the bad things I ’ve done in the past.I ’m going to try to forget all that now and go forward. I ’ve only been at T.H.O.M.A.S.a short time but already I feel very welcome.The lads that I live with in the house are brilliant.I couldn ’t ask for more support.I ’ve always had a problem with talking to people in the past because I thought they might laugh at me.Now I feel free to talk about anything.I can talk to people about my problems now instead of keeping them all locked up inside of me.I ’ve shared most of my problems now with the lads,I ’ve got other things,but they ’ll come in time.Now I ’m welcome here I ’ve decided that I ’m going to stay.This is probably the best chance of my life.I don ’t want to waste it. |
